States Target School Vending Machines toCurb Child Obesity

The battle against childhood obesity used to be one of admonitions:
Don't eat this candy, don't drink that soda.

Now elected officials are proposing measures to put the nation's
children on a diet. State policymakers appear particularly eager to
join the war on fat, and many are choosing vending machine sales in
schools as their first target.

In the latest high-profile action, Gov. Gray Davis of California
signed a bill Sept. 17 that places restrictions on the kinds of foods
and drinks that can be sold in school vending machines. That move was
preceded over the summer by Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs'
executive decision to limit schoolchildren's access to candy and
sodas.

And Arkansas enacted a school nutrition law in June that prohibits
access to vending machines in elementary schools and requires middle
and high schools to restrict those sales to students until after
lunch.

Similar legislative proposals to ban or curtail soda and candy sales
in schools have been introduced in at least 19 other states, according
to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"Everybody was waiting to see what the [California] governor would
do with that bill," said Leslie T. Robbins, a policy specialist for the
Denver-based NCSL. "Now that he's signed it, my prediction in 2004 is
that we'll see even more bills" in state legislatures.

'Fat Profits'

Ms. Combs was ready to defend her decision to make Texas one of the
first states to limit children's access to "foods of minimum
nutritional value" in elementary and middle schools.

The rules completely ban the sale of such foods in elementary
schools during the academic day and require middle schools to bar
students' access to soda, candy, and high-fat snacks during meal
periods. Also, middle schools are prohibited from selling soda to
students in individual servings that exceed 12 ounces.

Schools lose a day of meal reimbursement funds from the state when
they're caught violating the rules, which the agriculture commissioner
warned would be aggressively enforced.

Shortly after unveiling the new policy, Ms. Combs, a Republican who
was first elected in 1998, released a survey that showed that roughly
half the 932 school districts in Texas have exclusive vending contracts
with soft drink companies such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or Dr Pepper. The
agreements are lucrative, generating an estimated $54 million annually
for Texas public schools, with the largest districts raking in as much
as $2.7 million a year.

"Clearly, it's time for school districts to re-examine their
dependence on these types of contracts and the shortsightedness of
choosing fat profits over healthy kids," the commissioner said at an
Aug. 27 press conference.

Pointing to federal statistics that show the percentage of
overweight U.S. children has doubled among the younger ages over the
past two decades and tripled among adolescents, state officials across
the country argue that the problem constitutes a public-health crisis
that demands action.

Industry representatives call the legislative efforts to outlaw or
limit school soda and snack sales misguided. They argue that
legislation to improve health instruction or mandate physical education
would be more effective in combating obesity.

Banning certain foods for students "just sets up this
forbidden-fruit syndrome," said Michael C. Burita, the communications
director for the Center for Consumer Freedom, a Washington-based
nonprofit organization that represents restaurants and food
companies.

"The irony," Mr. Burita said, "is that most of the money from these
contracts helps pay for after- school programs and sports, things that
arguably do more to prevent obesity than soda bans."

On the other hand, many public-health advocates and some legislators
insist that the sale of soda and junk food in schools is a key
contributor to the fattening of American children. Until recently,
though, few legislatures have been eager to take up proposals that
threaten the income streams of public schools.

But Ms. Robbins of the NCSL and other observers suggest that the
tide is now shifting in favor of state-mandated restrictions on such
sales.

'Find Out the Truth'

At a Sept. 15 press
conference in Washington, the Center for Science in the Public
Interest stacked these 30 one-pound boxes to show the amount of
soda sugar a typical child consumes in a year.
—Photograph by Allison Shelley/Education Week

The challenge, Ms. Robbins said, will be to turn all those state bills
into laws. She said that could be a slow process.

To begin with, legislators who propose bans or limits on soda sales
in schools run into stiff opposition from school groups and lobbyists
for the soft drink industry.

As a result, Ms. Robbins said, many of the lawmakers have altered
their legislation to target sales to younger students in elementary and
middle schools.

"It's easier to target the younger grades, because you can make the
argument that they're young, they don't know any better, and they need
protection," she said. "I think it's a compromise legislators are
making with soft drink and food companies."

To get the bill in California passed, the sponsor, Sen. Deborah V.
Ortiz, a Democrat, was forced to accept amendments that watered down
the proposal by exempting high schools and allowing students to bring
soft drinks to school. Even so, the bill passed in the Senate on a
straight party-line vote. ("School Soda Sales Lose Fizz With
Calif. Lawmakers," Sept. 10, 2003.)

In Maine, a bill introduced by Rep. Sean Faircloth this year to bar
candy and soda sales in public schools failed to win any votes in the
House education committee and was held over until the 2004 session.

Instead, the legislature set up a committee to study obesity and
related health-care costs and produce a report with policy
recommendations by Dec. 1.

Mr. Faircloth, a Democrat, applauded the creation of the committee,
but he said he still wanted to see the availability of unhealthy food
and drinks to schoolchildren dramatically lowered. His proposal would
prohibit the sale of food and beverages with a high sugar or sweetener
content, prohibit soft drink sales in elementary and middle schools,
and limit sales in high schools to products with no caffeine or
sugar.

The legislator rejected the argument that schools will lose money if
they choose to serve healthy foods. He cited a list of healthier
vending machine options recommended in September by the
Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest; those items
include granola bars, fruit cups, raisins, bottled water, orange juice,
and low-fat milk.

"It's one of those industry misrepresentations that there will be
this dramatic revenue loss, but there are other, healthier options out
there," Mr. Faircloth said. "My message to school boards and
administrators: Don't be played for suckers. Do the research and find
out the truth."

A Tough Choice

In Oregon, no action was taken in the last legislative session on
Sen. William E. Morrisette's proposal to require that all food and
drinks sold in schools meet the same nutritional standards as those
offered in the federal government's school meals program.

A lobbyist for school boards in the state said the Democratic
lawmaker's bill represents an unwelcome and unwarranted intrusion into
local decisionmaking.

"I don't know of a school district in Oregon that has not already
adopted a policy to limit the sale of these products during the school
day," said John C. Marshall, the director of legislative affairs for
the Oregon School Boards Association. "The idea that somehow local
school officials are blinded to the nutritional needs of students by
the promise of revenue is insulting."

Some groups argue that states should spend less time trying to
regulate what children eat or drink in school and focus instead on
making sure K-12 education is adequately financed.

"We'll know when we've reached funding adequacy because school
districts will no longer have to pit Coke and Pepsi in bidding wars for
the most lucrative contracts," Mr. Marshall said.

Ms. Combs agreed.

Although the Texas agriculture commissioner has been tough on
schools in public, she sounded a softer tone in a telephone interview
last week. She acknowledged that districts are caught in the difficult
position of "having to choose between great nutrition [for students]
and income."

Still, she argues that schools can choose to sell healthier drinks
and foods.

"The answer is clearly to change the content of the [vending]
machines," Ms. Combs said.

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